Ruby Slippers
The enchanted footwear that Dorothy Gale wore in the magical Land of Oz that took the world's breath away, were originally made out of silver. These shoes were first Silver Shoes in the original book of 1900 tilted 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', by L. Frank Baum, author and creator of the Oz legacy. Despite this fact and due to popular belief many people piture the shoes being red or "ruby" due to the iconic 1939 movie starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. Because of their iconic stature, they are now among the most treasured and valuable of film memorabilia. As was customary for important props, a number of pairs were made for the film, though the exact number is unknown. Five pairs are known to have survived. Judy Garland's Ruby Slippers were created in a special way like no other shoes in the world! These authentic shoes are also one of the most famous footwear involved in any fairytale, legend ever told. And are visually one of the most iconic pair in cinema other than "Cinderella" and the Glass Slipper she lost at the Royal Ball. Making The Magic Ruby Slippers of Oz In a nutshell, the original Ruby Slippers for the 1939 film were regular shoes of a two in a half inch heel. The shoes were spray painted completely red and then drapped in a rich red silk for the base of the stitching. 2,300 plain red sequins were added and then 4,600 metallic red sequins were also added to each individual shoe. Every single little sequin was delicately hand-sewn which took many weeks to finish. Multiple pairs of the Slippers were made, and even in different colors that came in shades of blood red ruby, bright ember-orange red and dark cherry burgundy red. Each Ruby Slipper was worn at different periods throughout the movie depending on the angle, lighting and how close the camera was to Judy Garland's feet. The bow on each shoe were cut out of strap of thick leather and dyed red, then decorated with 46 crystal rhinestones made out of real red glass, 3 large rectangular red glass jewels and 42 dark maroon red bugle beads. The actual shoes underneath all these beautiful and dazzling red decorations were made of 1930's white silk pumps from Innes Shoe Company Ltd in Los Angeles and then dyed red by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). Some of the shoes had a gold or silver stamp, while others had cloth sewn on each right shoe with the company's logo. Also hand written on both shoes is Judy Garland's name which is still visible today. Quality works of art matters for MGM, just as much as they are for our magic Ruby Slippers of Oz! The Wizard of Oz 1939 The Ruby Slippers are the magic shoes worn by Dorothy Gale as played by Judy Garland in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz and Fairuza Balk in the 1985 Disney movie Return to Oz. Dorothy is given these by Glinda, as they are taken from The Wicked Witch of the East. They have been seen quite powerful, since they were able to shock The Wicked Witch of the West's fingers in the 1939 film, before she was even able to touch them. Arabian Ruby Slippers The first version of shoes for the movie were given an Arabic look and design. The slippers had pointed toes like in the original book, and had many large beads sewn all over each shoe. The Arabian look was eventually discarded in post production and the shoes were given a more modern appearance that was more appealing to the American audience of that time. In Supernatural The ruby slippers contain powerful magic, but Dorothy never actually wore them. She felt it would be "tacky" to wear a dead person's shoes. Charlie Bradbury ultimately kills the Wicked Witch with them. (Supernatural: "Slumber Party") Return to Oz 1985 Click Your Heels & Return To The Cult Classic... Like many elements in the 1939 film, Dorothy's ruby slippers have passed into the realm of popular legend to become, quite possibly, the most famous piece of costuming in all of motion picture history. Their inclusion in Return to Oz was never really un question, and they are the only genuine physical and visual tie that viewers of the newer Oz film will have to the earlier one. But their appearance in such a major cinematic effort did pose problems, both legal and physical. As created by Baum, the slippers were, of course, not "ruby" at all, but silver. When MGM changed the color in 1938, they became an integral part of their film, - as well as MGM pproperty. To avoid copyright infringement, special permission had to be obtained from Metro in order for the ruby slippers to appear in a Disney picture. The new ruby slippers were hand-made by McPail. In all, he crafted seven pairs of shoes: two pair (size 3) for Ozma, two pair (Size 11) for the Nome King, and the remaining three for Dorothy. The shoes are worn by all three characters at different times in the film. In construction, McPhail started with a plain red leather cork shoe with a Louis heel. This was then covered with reflective fabric onto which multi-faceted glass rubies were attached. These red stones, imported from Austria, first had to be soaked in sulfuric acid in order to remove their mercury backing. Then, two optical glues were used to attach and hold them in place: one sprayed directly on the fabric and a second attached directly to the shoes. Because of their faceting, each stone had to be place individually on each shoe. To complicate matters further, no amount of glue was able to hold all the stones permanently in place -especially when they were jostled by under hot sound stage lights by active little girls. The sparkling beauty of the slippers was later enhanced in post-production by the additional optical effects, which make the slippers seem to "glow" on screen. "Fairuza Balk simply could not stay still between scenes," McPhail remembers. "After all, she's only 10 years old - you can't expect children to stay put. Even sitting in a chair, she would do things like tap her feet and click her shoes together. The stones would go rolling across the sound stage, and I would chase after them. We finally had to take the shoes off her between shots but, even so, I would end up sweeping the stage at the end of each day to try and collect whatever had fallen off." Technicolor Glinda the Good (1939) In L. Frank Baum's original novel, Dorothy wears silver shoes. Screenwriter Noel Langley changed them to ruby to take advantage of the Technicolor process used for the movie. Like all the costumes in the film, they were designed by Gilbert Adrian, the head of MGM's costume department. Sequins were hand-sewn onto a chiffon surface to give the shimmering effect. At first the costume department had tried merely to spray leather shoes red, though that effort failed. Interestingly, the ruby slippers used in the film were more burgundy than red. The 3-strip Technicolor process used in 1939 could not reproduce colors with true-to-life fidelity, and various compromises were made out of necessity. Shoes that were actually red would have photographed as orange. Salman Rushdie wrote a short story titled "The Auction of the Ruby Slippers." In his book The Ruby Slippers of Oz (1989), Rhys Thomas writes about four extant pairs of them. Stolen Slippers The trouble lies in the fact that there was never any single authentic pair of ruby slippers. Crucial props and costumes in Hollywood films were made in multiple copies; Judy Garland's Dorothy costume was actually six blue-and-white checked gingham dresses. Mervyn LeRoy, the film's producer, said of the ruby slippers, "We must have had five or ten pairs of those shoes."Harmetz, p. 308. One surviving pair is size 4B, Garland's shoe size; another is size 6, the shoe size of her stand-in Bobbie Koshay. There are at least four pairs known to exist today. The one that was given away as a contest prize in 1939 sold for $165,000 in 1970 by a man named Michael Shaw and for $660,000 in 2000. One pair was stolen from a display at a festival at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005,http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/media/Minnesota-Monthly/March-2009/Who-Stole-the-Ruby-Slippers/ and they were never seen again. Investigators arrived on the scene to figure that the robber must have entered and left in less than two minutes with no witnesses. Shaw was a traveler/collector who often showcased his pair at most museums, including this one. He brought them in a simple Plexiglass case, and he left them at the museum for people to view. However, around a week later, the glass was smashed and the heels were gone. References Category:Magical Items